Time Management: How do you do it?

[Patt Legg]

What a thread and a common one indeed.

I have been asking myself this very question and anyone else who would stop to listen.

Julie, I can relate so much with the "flavor" of your post. Particularly with the part about needing balance in your life and the forgetting bill time. I am at a point in my life when I should be very much in control and have plenty of time but I am busier than ever. Not that I didn't intentionally plan it that way but somehow I have allowed it to get out of control.

My 5 adult kids are all on their own now and my time was better, the last one out and ok over 15 years ago. Unfortunately, my hubby has been ill now and home all of the time for over 10 years. He has been able to take over the meals in the evening that has been a blessing and sometimes the laundry (although it is scary sometimes). Also, within the last 1 1/2 years I have opened my own Gallery and Gift Boutique -Tues- Sat. My intention was to paint on location within my shoppe. Well my left brain has plenty of battles with my right side of the brain -finding it very difficult to concentrate on serious work (commissions)

I proceeded to only paint still life, whatever I could to demo for my incoming customers. Now I have my easel (the Sorg here on the sideline) set up in part of my dining room at home with my serious portrait setting there. Now here is where I thought putting Michele's theory to work was for me. I have 5 commissioned portraits with their deadlines (sort of) . What I have found is that most of my clients will say "whenever" I finish is ok with them. So what do I do-----procrastinate.

Meanwhile I am working on my web pages myself, yes Kimberly I cut my hair myself for over 2 years now, manage my 4 rentals we have had for 10 years as extra income, clean our 10 room 2-story house (sometimes), go to some outside interests for the interest of my in-town business, on occasion sit with or play with one of our 12 grandchildren, do a yard sale, meanwhile my hubby is admitted to the hospital usually 3 times a year for 3-15 days, yadda yadda yadda.

I had better stop now as I feel I am hogging space. I am totally out of control of my life - painting life at least-feeling so distressed that I cannot paint and at the moment, I am flat on my back most of the past 3 days due to stress and problems in my back that I cannot walk.

Help!!!! I do actually accomplish most of all that I set out to do , believe it or not, but my body, my health and my painting is suffering.

I feel sometimes like I am racing against time but not sure why.



I will stop

[Patt Legg]

Oh and I almost forgot, ( I said my memory is failing too) I also do 3 to 5 six day workshops a year in beginner oil painting.

Any suggestions as to how to actually orgainize my time -beginning with organizing my thoughts?

Thanks
Patt

[Michele Rushworth]

I'd suggest one thing: priortize. Sounds like you do a lot of different things and maybe some of them have to fall by the wayside.

[Patt Legg]

Michele, I totally agree on the priortize thing. I am very high energy and if I were to use todays' jargen, maybe a little ADD too in that my mind works the same way. It doesn't stop until I can finally sleep. Although I do not have trouble sleeping.

Please know that I am not really complaining but more asking for a 1,2,3, kind of list of how one goes about the priortizing thing. What do I liminate here. Believe me, my house has suffered because it definitely is not my prioity anymore like it used to be. It's not bad now you know but just not perfect, that lived in look.

Hubby says all of the time that one thing is that I am a perfectionest and that is probably true. So I over-do.

Thanks for reply at least acknowledging that someone out there read it.

Have a good day
Patt

[Julie Deane]

Patt,

I can relate to a lot you wrote, especially the "racing against time".

After years taking care of family, we have time to do more for ourselves. But how much time is left? 10 years? 20? 40? That mortality factor....

When I was young I assumed I had plenty of time. Now I know better. I had better get what I want to do done before it is too late.

The paradox is: if artwork is done to the exclusion of basic health, potential painting time is shortened by default.

The priorities: enough sleep, taking time to cook right and exercise. Certain household basics. That takes care of the physical. Then the emotional/spiritual. For me, emotional needs include the need to create.

[Debra Jones]

I am jumping in here, as I use internet time to walk away from the art stuff.

Reading the above posts, I guess I do sort of have a rhythm, if not a schedule.

I am in life limbo but the only cohesion is painting. I had to move out of my home of 13 years in January and am rooming in a very nice place but under emotionally impossible conditions with an ex-boyfriend whose recent divorce made an extra bit of cash very attractive. The digs are very temporary and very far from my sphere of influcence. I have begun to live in my car and it is not pretty.

Since I have restarted painting, I have always kept supplies in my trunk and I got a big rolling suitcase so I have a little shop on wheels. I do as many demos as I can anywhere they will let me. Presently I paint probably 4-6 hours on weekends at a pet friendly coffee house 20 miles from my present living quarters, but have added a fancy resort hotel to the list at 2-3 hours a stint a couple of days a week and it is only 30 miles away. When I drive I think and listen to the radio so I am becoming political! The painting demos are my real advertizing. The paintings I do there have rarely been commissions but I will paint anyway, so if I do it in public, I am widening my range of visibility.

When I hit home, I print brochures. I always include 10 with my commissions and feature the painting I just did on the cover! That way when the client is spreading the word on my work, they are doing it with DOUBLE pride! So that means more computer time. That is as much fun as watching paint dry because I have a very old machine.

I also have a day job, also 20 miles away and I have tried to limit my days there to three. I can set my own schedule but when you DON'T want clients, they can't leave you alone. I have tried this week to to a demo in the morning and am moving the clients to evening and afternoon. It is exhausting but I feel better about my miles on the road, adding the extra ten on top of the first 20!

I paint when I get home and mostly on the weekdays off. The roommate situation has made me a cave dweller. I seem to have odd rituals that include pacing from room to room, piddling about sort of like winding a spring. After hunting for lost things, looking in the refrigerator for nothing, wiping counters, balancing a check book, all the while, forming the image in my head, I sort of LEAP into work and paint. The other night, I had three pieces roughed in for the demos (NEVER go totally blank, always look good from the first stroke or I lose the audience....) I found myself finishing two and literally locking myself out of the room so I would have at least an hour of time to do! I have to schedule life in between painting and it makes it hard to find the people to buy the work when I prefer to be making it than selling it.

Today, I am going to go out in two hours. I have nothing ready. There are two LARGE animal commissions looming, that I have sent layouts to the clients, but have not gotten confirmation to proceed. I will not touch a canvas until I get a committment. I have plenty of good things in my head without speculating on art I cannot resell. SO I will play with a few of my own photos for a half hour and pick one. Then I will sketch and do an underpainting in acrylic so I have a start. Then I will paint for three hours and chat. Hopefully I will pass out enough brochures and ONE person will either get a picture out of their wallet or actually email something to me so I can start a long distance relationship.

When I get permanent digs, I will have sitters. I have worked from life for so long, that photos are seriously cheating for me. I like doing all my composition in the computer before I paint and then disengage my brain and just paint.

This was about time management.

I have a priority and whenever I talk to people, I point out that I have an excellent work ethic but a rather nebulous job! Under all this perceived chaos is one goal: Make enough money to have art as my job. This means putting a shingle out in front of a studio and finding a home ALONE to sit my buns in when I want to watch Jon Stewart at midnight. That is when I crash now . . . until the roommate's garage door opens at 6:30 and lets me know I can start wandering the house again.

Well, the brain is wound, I have to put the painting together now and maybe meet a few members at the Scottsdale Princess today!

[Patt Legg]

Debra,

Wow!! After reading your post , I feel better. It is truly amazing how your life sounds chaotic but organized in such a manner that you accomplish so very much. I went to your web site and I am very impressed to say the least.

In my case, I feel that much of my dilemma is that of having too many "things". I think that is a common complaint in the later years. I wish to scale down therefore,we finally put our house up for Sale. Of course, hubby asks, "what is scale down? don't you know the next house will still have to be cleaned,etc?"

Sometimes a little two bedroom cabin with a few trees around it, a porch with a comfy chair where I can sip my a.m. coffee or my cup of tea at dusk, a single easel, tiny table with a glass palette full of paint and brushes, enough beans and rice to suffice for awhile ---------well, I can dream can't I?

Life if so funny. The prior paragraph was almost a precise description of the way I began years ago--and then I wanted to do better. I sometimes wonder why human nature is that way and it truly is. In this space where I am in my head now is Solitude, quiet-ness, Spiritual. I love where I am now as far as my life goes ----I am definitely more at peace with myself. I sometimes think that is in some way--the problem. Like you said, Julie, after all those years of taking care of others, we often are at a loss of how to take care of ourselves---at least without a hint of guilt there.

Debra, I lived in Chandler for about 13 years-------wayy-y-y-y back in early 60's. As a matter of fact it was there that I had my first interest in painting.
Haven't been there since 1973 and I hear Chandler is hugely populated and so crowded now.
But I do leave an X there where I still have my name on a house---but that's another story. Tell ya sometime.

[Anthony Emmolo]

Hello Linda,

I have a lot of thoughts on time management. Some may be worth your while to think about. Firstly, I try to learn a lot about this business by the people of today who I feel are the top business people of the day. They may not be artists, but they are successful largely due to their good habits and persistence.

Here are a few what I consider to be gems by Donald Trump the New York City Real Estate Developer on this very topic:

From "The Art Of The Deal"

Page 7- "...lunch: a can of tomato juice. I rarely go out, because mostly, it's a waste of time."

Page 12- After writing about a phone call he received that covered a lot of turf. "Our call lasts less than two minutes. That's one thing I love about Alan: he never wastes time."

Page 33- "Also when I do give an interview, I always keep it short. This reporter is in and out in less than twenty minutes. If I didn't limit myself, I could spend my life talking to the press."

Donald Trump is a hard man in many ways. It may not be so necessary for an artist to be this strict with oneself. However, from time to time we could probably save a lot of time for painting just by letting the phone ring, using the computer with a timer on it, etc. I for one have benefited from the words the I just wrote from that book. I tend to be a second coffee kind of guy before going into the studio at times.

Also, any book I read about successful habits comes from people who are up and working at no later than 6:00am. I've started that habit as well.

Good luck,
Anthony